CRL Libraries Support Purchase of Four Microform Sets

With the support of 17 member libraries, CRL will acquire four microform sets through its 2014 Shared Purchase Program. The total list cost of these acquisitions, which benefit all CRL members, is $42,200.

The Shared Purchase Program, along with the Purchase Proposal Program, are CRL cooperative collection development efforts. Through these programs, CRL members nominate, prioritize, and vote for CRL to acquire highly important but expensive materials. Shared Purchase Program materials are acquired with CRL seed money and funds contributed by interested CRL libraries.

CRL thanks the following libraries for contributing to this year’s Shared Purchase Program:

University of Alabama

University of Chicago

Columbia University

Cornell University

Duke University

George Mason University

Harvard University

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Indiana University

University of Iowa

University of Michigan

Michigan State University

University of Oregon

University of Pennsylvania

Stanford University

Vanderbilt University

University of Wisconsin- Madison

Generous contributions from these libraries made possible the acquisition of the collections below. (In the case where more money was pledged than needed for the acquisition of a resource, institutional pledges were reduced proportionally.)

Argentinisches Tageblatt (AT) was founded in Buenos Aires in 1889 by a Swiss immigrant Johann Alemann and his son Moritz. AT publication took a liberal/democratic position. It was firmly opposed to National Socialism in Germany, and consequently banned in Germany.

Hermann Tjarks started Deutsche La Plata Zeitung in Buenos Aires in 1880. It was a competitor of Argeninisches Tageblatt (AT), and its conservative monarchist leanings put it in political opposition to AT. The difference between the two papers increased in the 1920s, and Argentine National Socialist organizations recognized the value of Deutsche La Plata in their efforts to gain the support of Argentine Germans.

The loss of advertising revenue from Argentine Jews, combined with free advertising offered for Argentine National Socialist groups, ruined La Plata Zeitung financially by 1938. Support from Germany rescued it temporarily, but the sinking of an Argentine freighter by a German submarine led to violent attacks on the publisher, and in 1944 the Argentine government ordered DeutscheLa Plata to cease publication.

Gubernskie Vedomosti began to be published since the late 1830s by the local gubernia governments of imperial Russia. The number of titles steadily grew from the initial 4 to over 80 by 1918 when the last Gubernskie Vedomosti was closed down. The frequency of publication varied from title to title and from year to year, but most of the titles were published multiple times a week. They had a largely uniform organizational structure combining government news and laws into the official section and mainly local affairs in the unofficial section. They came out with irregularly issued supplements usually featuring substantial reports, travelogues, or scholarly researches. Titles being acquired include: Kurskie gubernskie vedomosti, 1838-1918 and Kaliszskie gubernskie vedomosti, 1867-1914.

Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York (NARA T715). National Archive and Records Administration ($8,250)

The NARA microfilm provides immigration information recorded in the passenger arrival records between 1820 and 1957 for vessels arriving at the Port of New York between 1820 and 1957. The portion requested for CRL shared purchase covers the period from October 30, 1940-June 28, 1942.

The passenger list records were created by the U.S. Customs Service (Record Group 36), and the Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS] (Record Group 85). They include information such as: a person's nationality/place of birth; ship name and date of entry to the United States, port of origin, profession, age, place of last residence, name and address of relatives they are joining in the U.S., amount of money they are carrying, etc.

Most existing digital versions of these records do not cover the 1940s, or support retrieval only on named individuals rather than providing full information on ship names and departure dates.